Lamh Foistenach Abu!
Posted on 04/18/2010 2:28:25 PM PDT by NYer
Over at the Times, Maureen Dowd is resting this sabbath, and so her colleague Nicholas Kristof picks up where she left off, with a litany of complaints about the all-male hierarchy.
Then, near the end, he offers this tribute to the Catholic Church as the world's most dynamic and effective social service organization:
In my travels around the world, I encounter two Catholic Churches. One is the rigid all-male Vatican hierarchy that seems out of touch when it bans condoms even among married couples where one partner is H.I.V.-positive. To me at least, this church -- obsessed with dogma and rules and distracted from social justice -- is a modern echo of the Pharisees whom Jesus criticized.
Yet there's another Catholic Church as well, one I admire intensely. This is the grass-roots Catholic Church that does far more good in the world than it ever gets credit for. This is the church that supports extraordinary aid organizations like Catholic Relief Services and Caritas, saving lives every day, and that operates superb schools that provide needy children an escalator out of poverty.
This is the church of the nuns and priests in Congo, toiling in obscurity to feed and educate children. This is the church of the Brazilian priest fighting AIDS who told me that if he were pope, he would build a condom factory in the Vatican to save lives.
This is the church of the Maryknoll Sisters in Central America and the Cabrini Sisters in Africa. There's a stereotype of nuns as stodgy Victorian traditionalists. I learned otherwise while hanging on for my life in a passenger seat as an American nun with a lead foot drove her jeep over ruts and through a creek in Swaziland to visit AIDS orphans. After a number of encounters like that, I've come to believe that the very coolest people in the world today may be nuns.
So when you read about the scandals, remember that the Vatican is not the same as the Catholic Church. Ordinary lepers, prostitutes and slum-dwellers may never see a cardinal, but they daily encounter a truly noble Catholic Church in the form of priests, nuns and lay workers toiling to make a difference.
Ugh! Most Catholics have a limited religious education. Imagine those outside the church! In my capacity as Director for Religious Education at our small parish, I am often approached by pew sitters who wish to express their opinions on how the church can improve. Today, it was a grandfather lamenting the lack of seminarians to meet the needs of the church. When I pointed out that Catholics are having fewer children and encouraging their sons to marry and have children, this grandfather’s response was that the church should ordain women. I’ll spare you the commentary ... it ended with me advising grandpa to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church and learn his faith.
This was nauseating...and stupid. Kristof should be embarrassed. This garbage, ranging from the “deaconesses” to Mary Magdalen to the Gnostics, was all the rage in the 1970s and early 1980s (before Ratzinger got control of any offices, I suspect!) and was disproved and ridiculed 30-40 years ago.
But I guess sounding like a stupid leftist chick from 1974 doesn’t bother Kristoff.
In any case, it does reveal one thing: the structure of the Church is very important, and even though the attackers are obviously dumb as posts, they realize this, and are now turning their assaults towards the structure itself.
Lamh Foistenach Abu!
Divide and conquer - it’s what the the Left DOES.
Even when it means they sound like idiots.
In fact, ESPECIALLY when it means they sound like idiots, because then you prove your LOYALTY by accepting the idiocy.
You got it! But there is also so much ignorance within the Church ... where does one even begin to address it all?
As far as these beliefs not being a part of the Catholic Church, you're absolutely right.
Outside of the issue of inclusion in Church teachings however, taken on their own merits, "deaconesses," Mary Magdalen and the Gnostics are hardly considered "garbage" by many millions of people. Disagree with their beliefs if you'd like, but unless you accept a discussion wherein Catholicism may be referred to as "garbage" by those not of the faith, your language should be kept more civil.
>>You got it! But there is also so much ignorance within the Church ... where does one even begin to address it all? <<
In “Happy Catholic” parishes where BC is king and all this lib stuff is going on, they have two, maybe three kids, who are not educated.
In traditional parishes, where we follow the magisterium, our average is 4 with as many as 12 kids, all well educated in the Catechism and Catholic tradition.
We educate who we can and breed out the rest. Time heals all wounds.
What business is it of these SOB’s what Catholics believe. Nobody is forcing them to belong.
Same way with Nuns who want to be Priests. Go somewhere else.
If you dont like the rules Leave, and take your friggin football with you.
No, it’s garbage.
The problem here is that the whole riff on "deaconesses", Mary Magdalen, and the Gnostics was created specifically to attack the Catholic Church. It has no basis in historical fact.
A bunch of people believe it solely because they were deluded by Dan Brown and his ilk in the popular press. If scores of people run around in a panic because they believe that Martians are landing in Grover's Mill, that doesn't make it true just because a lot of people believe it. It just makes them victims of a hoax.
Moreover, Brown may well just be in it to make money, but plenty of liberals within the Church push that garbage because they want to recreate the Church in their New Age image.
If you don't like the word 'garbage', we can say, 'deliberately manufactured falsehood to discredit Catholic beliefs'.
They're coming for all Christians next, you know.
We know. Speaking as a Protestant I consider Roman Catholics as my brothers and sisters. I do not agree with all the doctrines of your church, and hence am not a member, but the days when we could afford to give in to division and hatred because of arguments among theologians and seminarians are long past. I feel much the same way about Jews.
The Church will never compete with the Rotary club.
No, it’s garbage. Deaconesses is a mis-translation; it didn’t refer to an office, but to what we would virtually call “volunteers” nowadays. These were women who volunteered to help (serve, diakonia) with women converts, since men could not help them with their baptism, etc., since it usually meant disrobing and required personal contact. But it was not an ecclesiastical office.
As for Gnosticism, nobody ever treated women worse than the Gnostics. Women were unclean; Gnosticism is one of the precursors of Islam. Do a little research. There’s no reason to be civil about Gnosticism or the heresies inspired by it.
I think we have to teach our young as much as possible, and we have to look to history. I helped design a pilgrimage (basically, a walking tour) for a Confirmation class in our city, and I realized when we were doing this that what post-Vatican II Catholics are lacking is a knowledge of our history.
We've got to start talking about our history and tradition again, as well as about the saints that preceded us in the Faith.
And we owe special respect to the Jews because they are our elder brothers in the faith.
My real problem with the whole "Gospel of Judas"/"Mary Magdalen married Jesus" etc. etc. is that it's just all so FALSE. My undergraduate degree was in history, and I still find it shocking what people can be deluded into believing is "historical fact". I guess if you're not trained in the discipline it doesn't jump out like a neon sign . . . .
Quid est veritas, garbageman?
Amen FRiend. We must all band together and we can start right here on FR to shame the bigots into mending their ways or taking their bigotry elsewhere.
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